While IBM was interested in buying, they bailed out. Maybe because it was too costly in comparison to all the hoops IBM would have to go through. Being a hardware builder and integrator IBM would be required to pass through a ton of red tape to acquire Sun. Whereas with Oracle, who is more of a software builder and integrator has now acquired a new hardware endeavor and won’t have to cut through as much red tape.

When puzzles fit, and all the pieces are down, found and integrate, the reward is always a breath of fresh air. Executives and architects can get on with life – fixing things and getting on with business; and where sometimes a heated debate and heated acquisition can cause ire and bad feelings for years. That may be the best thing going for this deal.

As a database architect, I am most interested in the Oracle-MySQL debate. I’m all for the fact that Oracle can now narrow the focus of hardware-software integrations and make data centers more compatible and thus more stable from top to bottom. I am more worried about the possibilities of killing MySQL.

My interests for years have naturally fallen on Microsoft SQL Server becuase of the low-cost of ownership and the great amounts of opportunities in the database field to help business. I like the Oracle is a very mature software platform and has a tremendous amount of support in backing and technical allegiences. It’s very robust and capable. Just very costly. Then comes MySQL. I love the fact that it’s free. It has offered so many possibilities for small businesses and integrating a decent backend for applications and startups that it’s a great platform with some tremendous capabilities.

In hindsite, is the integration of transactions, logging, improved security, and clustering a little to late? Could this acquisition kill MySQL. As individual organizations (Oracle vs. Sun/MySQL) work on their independent database technologies, a healthy competition breeds momentum, creativity, and drive for improvement.

How will this stir the pot in kitchen? Does MySQL stand a chance as a spice in the rack of a restaurant like Oracle?

I will look forward to Oracle’s comments in the next few weeks about their plans with MySQL. Destroy or enhance?

I love the potential of MySQL and how it helps so many LAMP environments. The upcoming years will be interesting in the database world because of this acquisition, what will we see.

Since this was the second time this happened to me so I decided I should get all my ducks in a row cause if it happened twice, it will most likely happen a third time, if not to me, then to someone else.

The reason this happened was because my automated script that restores two databases and does everything to shut down and restart the instance got fowled up. It fowled up when I accidentally ran both scripts simultaneously. The first script did the shutdown operations, and the second script did the same. … which then barfed everything up and locked the files and considered everything in a shutdown state.This is what I did to get out of it. Parts of this came from the following weblog (http://www.orafaq.com/forum/t/38120/0/), but it was too convoluted, and got me in the mood to put down exactly what I did. (’cause that’s my real job, Systems Analysis and Design)

Execute the following commands to get things started.

• VNC to or access the oracle server in some way
• go to a command prompt (cmd at the Start | Run dialog)

In the command window execute the following

• sqlplus /nolog
• connect sys/change_on_install as sysdba;
• shutdown abort;
• startup nomount;
• alter database mount;
• alter database open;

If an error appears like…

cannot identify/lock data file 5
data file 5: ‘<filename>’

… then execute the following

• alter database datafile ‘<filename>’ offline drop;
• alter database open;

If another error occurs, because another file is locked, then repeat the same command. Do these two commands until you see a “database is altered” response, and no errors. If there are other errors, they are not covered here. For me I have three database files, so it took doing those two commands three times.

Successful Response

Finally execute this last command

• shutdown immediate;

And you should see this response.

Database closed.
Database dismounted.
ORACLE instance shut down.

Test

To prepare for the test make sure these commands are executed to ensure the instance is properly started.

• cmd prompt
• sqlplus /nolog
• connect sys/change_on_install as sysdba;
• startup;

Everything should come online.

Now test the connection with the following steps.

• get to a command prompt
• sqlplus
• username: “sys as sysdba” (without the double-quotes)
• password: “change_on_install” (without the double-quotes)

You should now be connected to the database without any errors.

ORA-01000: maximum open cursors

This error presented itself because I wasn’t closing the OracleDataReader object in my code. I’ll show below the entire code and then bold the code that I had to add to rid my code of the leak. I used TOAD for Oracle to find the opened cursors current in the Statistics of the Session Browser on the database.

I am using Oracle 10g and the C# code is as follows:

public int OracleActiveConnections
{
get // SELECT * FROM V$SESSION WHERE PROGRAM IS NOT NULL
{
OracleConnection oraConn = new OracleConnection(“Data Source=main_new_prod;User ID=system;Password=manager;”);
oraConn.Open();
OracleCommand oraCmd = oraConn.CreateCommand();
oraCmd.CommandText = “select count(server) as Value, server from v$session group by server”;
oraCmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.Text;
oraCmd.CommandTimeout = 15;
OracleDataReader oResult = oraCmd.ExecuteReader();
oResult.Read();
int iValue = Convert.ToInt32(oResult["Value"].ToString());
oResult.Close();
oResult.Dispose();
oraCmd.Dispose();
oraConn.Close();
oraConn.Dispose();

return iValue;
}
}

Adding the code in bold above closed the object cursors without having to tinker with the max-pooled settings on the datasource or the cursors setting on the database. Although this is something may need to be changed. Test, test test.

Nothing is wrong with Erwin or the Oracle database or it’s connections. It’s a matter of offering the right privileged user’s username/password to retrieve objects owned by a specific user.

I had setup two TNS entries, one to each server. The two users/databases I have are PBX and Clients. I was using these instead of my system user account.

This is what I did to do it wrong:

• Tools | Reverse Engineer
• Template: Option: Physical; Database: Oracle 10.x
• Set Options:
  • From: Database
  • Items: Default Option Set
  • Tables/Views Owned By: PBX
  • • I didn’t want to include Clients, although I could, because I didn’t want to combine the Clients and PBX database in to the same Erwin schema.
  • All else default
• Oracle connection:
  • Login: system/password
  • Connect string: TNS name to connect to

Once this was all set, I repeated for the other databases and servers. Again, I wasn’t providing the username and password that had enough rights to gather details. Any special tables only available to the system user would error.

I figured I would write it like I normal in SQLPlus using the “;” (semicolon) similar to any other statement. But No! It doesn’t like it. I’m sure there are other “invalid characters”, but I haven’t taken the time to find out what all of them. You you know of any and want to list them here I would be greatful.

I figured this might be enough to start the thread and because others would most likely think a common character like that wouldn’t be “invalid”, hmmm, but … it is! Hope it helps.

1. Install the Oracle Client from Oracle (10.2.x client version) on the SQL Server box
2. Setup the TNS to the Oracle box through the Oracle Net Manager application
   1. Click the ADD (+) icon under Local | Service Naming
   2. Type in the Service Name, which is used to find in the Service Naming list and the reference to the Service Name in SQL Developer, for example
   3. Choose the Protocol, which is usually TCP/IP
   4. Type in the Host Name, which is the Name or IP Address of the Oracle server.
   5. Type in the Service Name, which is the name of the service or the Global Database Name. It can get confusing between this one and the Service Name above (#1). The difference is that this one (#5) is used to identify the Oracle Name. TNS is a go between. Use (#1) in your app, which then goes through the TNS, which then points to the Service Name (#5) at the database. Another way to look at it is, from your Webserver or SQL Server, directly to Oracle, you go through the TNS using (#1) as the hard coded reference
   6. Specify the Connection Type, which is either Default or Dedicated Server
3. First, turn on the Allow InProcess option
   1. In SQL Server enterprise manager, expand Server Objects node, and then expand the Providers node.
   2. Right-click on the OraOLEDB.Oracle provider and click Properties
   3. Check the Allow Inprocess option (at least this has to be done on my machines)
4. Second, create the Oracle linked server
   1. Right-click on Linked Servers node and click New Linked Server
   2. Type in the name of the linked server as it would appear in the Linked Server list and as it would be referenced by SQL scripts
   3. Choose “Other data source” and select the Oracle Provider for Ole DB. If this is not an option, then follow instructions to install the Oracle Client.
   4. Type in the Product Name, which is the Service Name in #2 of #2 above.
   5. Type in the Data Source, which is the Service Name in #2 of #2 above.
   6. In the Security tab, type in the Remote Login and Password under the last option “Be made using this security context:”
   7. Click OK to commit the changes
5. Write the sql query using the following example
   1. select * from openquery(oraclels, ‘select * from <dbname>.<tablename> where <clause>’)

This doesn’t give the fastest results that we have been able to achieve. There is NOT an easy way to build the query on the fly with variable parameters and have it work quickly. You could create an EXECUTE @SQL statement that has been built around the same query above, but not one that is then in the same batch. The query has to be static and then supply any variable clauses. For example…

select field1, field2
from (select * from openquery (oraclels, ‘select * from db.table where <static clause>’)
where <variable clause>

Hope this helps.